


A Startling Beginning

by Kitty_KatAllie



Series: Do You Believe in Fairies? [8]
Category: Harvest Moon: Animal Parade
Genre: Gen, a getting to know these awesome blank-slate characters!, hmm is it romance or bromance? you decide!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 08:58:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16658089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitty_KatAllie/pseuds/Kitty_KatAllie
Summary: Wizard's Timestamp: takes place during Chapter 33, Wailing for Wishes. In Which a Wizard makes a friend and a Pastor gets free tea.





	A Startling Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, all mistakes are my own. Brief discussions of faith, please keep in mind the other character IS a pastor of a magical faith and... be respectful of this fictional character???

“It was delicious, thank you for you invitation,” the young pastor said gratefully as he stacked the plates.

“Are you sure you don’t need help to clean up?” Evelyn asked again from behind her chair.

Gale looked over at both of them, one eyebrow rising. Evelyn and the pastor were watching him with matching earnest expressions. Both were genuinely wanting to help, even as one struggled with the return of his anxiety and the other was itching to restart her day. It amazed him, the myriad and conflicting emotions that these young people had in them and how _truly_ they felt them all.

“I don’t require assistance cleaning a few dishes,” Gale said simply. Evelyn smirked and huffed, but the pastor looked a little pained. It took a moment before Gale realized how brusque he had unintentionally sounded. He blinked slowly and summoned up a few more awkwardly grateful words: “The offer is appreciated.”

He wasn’t sure they were enough, but the pained look on the pastor’s face eased. Evelyn just grinned, that truer and more amused grin, and shrugged.

“No problem. I better get going. Do you need help getting up to the Church, Pastor Perry?”

“But Evie, that’s the _opposite_ direction!” Finn exclaimed from where he still sat with a bulging belly on the table.

“It’s not so far, I’m sure I can find it just fine,” the pastor– ah, Perry, that’s what it was– replied with a humor that didn’t ring true in Gale’s mind. He narrowed his eyes, and focus, on Perry. Under the polite polish and amused façade lay a tremor of unease.

Despite the assurances, the pastor still seemed to regard his home as something to fear.

Evelyn, who had a natural affinity for sensing other’s general feelings, missed any cues due to her mind already being on whatever duties lay ahead of her. She smiled at them again and waved just as Finn flew up to her shirt and settled in her breast pocket. She buttoned up her coat, slapped on her hat, stopped and stared up at its floppy brim, obviously wondering how it managed to re-appear in a _Wizard’s_ house– really, she should be used to this thing by now– before she finally ducked out into the storm with a loud intake of breath.

The pastor stared at the closed door with his empty mug still in his hands. His eyes, dimmed to a dull brown, closed and he breathed in slowly and deeply. When he opened his eyes again, they were a little brighter and his shoulders were a little higher and straighter. He turned to Gale and bowed slightly.

“Thank you, again. I really enjoyed my visit here,” Perry said with a smile.

“Hm, I see,” Gale said, baffled at the honesty in the statement. He wasn’t sure how the young man could’ve had an entertaining time, or considered Gale one of the reasons he did, but he surely did. As Gale stared, confused and tongue-tied, Perry got his own raincoat on and freed his umbrella from the stand by the door.

“Excuse me, I’ll be going. I hope to see you again sometime soon,” he said with another senseless bow, just to blush a second later and shake his head at himself.

“Yes… Sometime soon.”

Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed in the long moment it took Perry to smile in surprised delight, then open his umbrella and walk out into the storm.

 

* * *

 

 

When the dishes were finally cleared, and with them the last remnants of his interloping visitors, Gale stood in his barely functional kitchen with his hands hanging empty at his sides. It had been such a _long_ time since he’d had actual _company_. Visitors who required attention and simple conversation had been few and far between the past years. The Tallesin girl– several other names hovered around her mind anxiously when introductions were made, but he discarded them as irrelevant– had had _business_ with him. However, that was not the same as supplying food and drinks.

Although… it hadn’t been _bad…_

Tallesin and her infant sprite were loud bright presences in his mind, but also guileless and friendly. There were no subtle or hidden greeds in them to shift his equanimity. The pastor was much the same, different only in his lack of cacophony. His soul was bright, but soothing, reaching out to be a balm for others naturally. His current anxiety over the supposed haunting was a blight on his innate ability. The loneliness of his life’s work and the sprite that inhabited his home had further darkened his heart.

Gale frowned.

It wasn’t like him to care about the hearts of others. Oh, he’d been… cursed or gifted (based on perspective) with the skill to _see_ into the hearts of others easily, too easily. He could glean thoughts, feelings, and memories just by being near someone, or by that someone emoting or remembering especially clearly and loudly. With his crystal ball, he didn’t even need people to be in eyesight. He’d been asked often to help in the affairs of the heart, and later it became his unintended trade, which had given him something of a reputation as a fortune teller.

However, it wasn’t something for his own entertainment, or for himself at all if he could help it. If he could throw up a wall and _force_ distance between himself and others, he would. He’d also never gone out of his way to keep on _thinking_ about the things he’d gleaned if they didn’t pertain to something important– such as a mission to Ring Bells or figuring out an almost century-long curse.

Yet, here he was now, ruminating over the heart of a pastor. A pastor too young and inexperienced for such a burden.

Gale sighed and looked out the window into the storm.

That’s all Castanet was these days: a burden. Especially to a man whose only job was obsolete. Obsolete until a Hero could revive the Tree and break the shackles over this place he called home.

Again, he pictured that blighted soul. Gale felt that loneliness, tasted it like the dregs of cold coffee filming his throat and tongue.

 _.I hope to see you again sometime soon._ That delighted smile and the brief flare of brightness around him at Gale’s reply.

The next moment, Gale was glancing over his books while musing over titles and subjects. A few of them slid out from the others, and he placed them in his shoulder bag. He had a tin of green tea, the top lid dusty from disuse. He used to drink it often, but his preference had shifted to coffee years ago. He traced a rune on the top to remind the leaves inside of their optimal flavor, and then packed it, too.

As usual, he’d _seen_ the pastor’s favorite things.

He set aside the bag and went about his last few… _chores_ before he could leave. A translation of a spell finished, the last ingredients to a potion mixed in and left to stew, his indoor plants watered; the usual things. Since he’d never placed the door at the Church, he also had to set up that quick transportation spell. After a while, he stepped through into the Church with his bag over his shoulder. The pastor was sitting at the front pew, an open book on his lap, but his eyes on the pulpit and the windows behind it. It was too dark for light to stream through, but even in the dim light, the dyed glass was beautiful. Without a word, Gale walked up the main aisle and settled down next to Perry.

The pastor startled so badly he jumped in his seat and his book fell with a thud to the floor.

“Oh! W-wizard! I wasn’t– Is it already so late?” he asked, eyes widening in shock, darting over to the door where the Bell hung in silence. 

Gale shook his head. “There are a few more hours yet.”

“Oh, good,” Perry sighed in relief, only to flounder a moment later, "I mean, I guess it's not good, because I'm not really looking  _forward_ –" He broke off and rubbed a hand over his face. After a few moments, he looked over at Gale, a question clearly writ across his face. "You're here early?"

Gale didn’t exactly have an answer, so he leaned down to pick up the book at Perry’s feet. The _Goddess’s Lore of Castanet_ shimmered on the cover, a holy tome more official and detailed than the novel he had written during his first years in Castanet. Something about the legends or bells, he’d long forgotten the name of it, though he’d been very proud of the Goddess’s blessing over it once upon a time.

Placing the text in Perry’s hands, he met the pastor’s eyes. “Does it give you a sense of comfort?”

Perry blinked in surprise. His eyes shifted away, shoulders high and tight, fingers tight around the supple leather until it began bending inward under his grip. He consciously had to relax his hold, eyes still anywhere but Gale’s.

“I suppose it’s silly to seek comfort in holy words when faced with a ghost that doesn’t exist, but… I can't help but return to what I know. I always feel… _better_ , stronger and clearer somehow, when re-reading words of faith,” Perry admitted. He smiled bashfully. “I suppose I chose my vocation well.”

“Your belief suits you,” Gale said simply.

Instead of that smile growing into something more grateful and brighter, into something like the smile he’d had during his thanks hours ago, Perry’s features fell into something darker and sadder. His fingers brushed over the well-worn corner of the gold-edged pages of the book. “It suits _only_ me these days. Perhaps if I were older, wiser, less… _scared_ , the people of Castanet would be able to bear their trials easier.” He huffed and shook his head, lowering his chin to hide his crumpled and defeated expression.

“You’re not the one at fault,” Gale said, feeling a fissure of shock and guilt that managed to cause a small amount of physical reaction: his fingers twitched on his lap and his gaze on a distant corner narrowed. “There was a force here working against you long before you came.”

“A… force?” Perry looked up and stared at him incomprehensibly.

“Can’t you feel it? It’s breaking apart slowly, but it still lingers in the Heart of Castanet,” Gale said, his gaze scanning over the chapel until it landed on Perry.

Perry bit his lip, but slowly nodded his head. “Just after that first Bell Rang, I felt… like a weight had been on me and then was suddenly lifted off. It’s been getting lighter, and sometimes when I pray to the Goddess, it’s… it’s like I _know_ she can hear me now. Like my words are going _somewhere_ rather than nowhere. But then,” Perry broke off and frowned. “I don’t know why it’s changed back again recently. It’s as if I fell asleep and woke up suffocating, and I’ve been suffocating ever since these storms began.”

Gale nodded lightly. “After today perhaps it will be lighter again, but I cannot promise that.”

Perry raised a hand and chuckled under his breath. “I don’t expect you to make that promise, but thank you for trying to be encouraging.”

“Was I?” Gale stared at him, that ripple of shock running though him again. 

Perry’s head tilted in confusion. “Were you what?”

“I didn’t mean to be encouraging, I was merely making a statement.”

A bright, splotchy red crawled up Perry neck and over his pale cheeks. “O-Oh, I didn’t mean to make an assumption.”

“I believe your assumption was partially correct.”

Their eyes met, Gale feeling very perturbed and Perry smiling awkwardly as his blush spread a little further. The pastor broke eye contact first, coughing behind his fist quietly.

“Was there a reason you needed to come by earlier than planned?”

Gale’s feeling of perturbation increased. “No.”

Perry stared and shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m about to make another assumption… Could you explain instead?”

Gale actually wanted to smile, the corners of his mouth stretching upwards before he got it back under control. “I brought books. And green tea. You’ll appreciate it more than I did.” He pulled the strap of his bag over his head and opened the flap to hold out the tin.

Perry took it, glancing over the Castanet label with wide, thrilled eyes. There hadn’t been a decent crop of Castanet green in _years_. He looked at the titles of the books, most of them histories and theological texts, until one in particular caught his eye. He plucked the battered paperback out of the pile and held it up in question.

“A sci-fi? Some pulpy vintage one from the looks of it…”

Gale shrugged. “It found me in a secondhand store. Much of the information is completely incorrect, however.”

Perry burst into laughter. “ _Fi_ stands for fiction,” he pointed out.

“Hm.”

Perry snorted and promptly covered his face with his hand at Gale’s unimpressed glare.

“You can keep it.”

“You didn’t like it that much?” Perry asked, still grinning.

“It was nonsensical, but it’s your favorite. You’ll enjoy it more than I.”

Perry glanced down at the book, then up at Gale. “I... I _do_ love sci-fi, especially these old ones. I have some terrible detective noirs, too. I like cheesy old things like these, and those old movies where you can still see the wires and the bad sets and they’re in all black-and-white? I love them.” He smiled fondly at the luridly colored cover and passed his palm over it affectionately. “Thank you. I don’t know how you knew, but thank you.”

Gale’s lips pulled up again, unable to help himself as a little bit more brightness returned to Perry’s weathered soul. Bright eyes glanced up as an idea struck him.

“I’ll go put on water to boil and then I’ll bring out my picnic blanket. We can lay it out right here and drink tea and talk about books and things until Miss Evelyn comes. That is…” his fervent excitement broke off as something more sheepish replaced it, “that is if you’re not planning on heading back home?”

Gale shook his head slowly. “I came to stay until 2 AM.”

“Wonderful!” Perry got to his feet eagerly. “I’ll be right back! Don’t change your mind!”

Gale smirked to himself, setting out his own books. Perhaps he didn't understand  _why_ he was there, but he'd never fought his own instincts before and he wouldn't now. 

**Author's Note:**

> Visiting family does NOT equal free time, nopenopenope. I'm glad I updated that chapter before so I don't feel so guilty this week. It took me two or three days to write and then proof and post this timestamp. Probably the slowest it's ever taken once I've sat down to work (especially since I did finish the rough draft in one sitting).
> 
> (Also, I'm not used to this much family in one place at one time. I'm freaking ooouuuttttttt)


End file.
